Monday, August 6, 2012

Unclose

The rituals and norms and received wisdom of baseball include bringing in your “closer” to close a game. Even if that closer pitched back-to back-nights on Thursday and Friday. Even if the guy who pitched the 8th inning only used 7 pitches to get through his inning. The wisdom is probably right most of the time (that’s why it’s called “wisdom”). Today it looks really suspect. Frank De La Santos came on in the 8th, and gave up a double. After that he was the beneficiary of a brilliant play by shortstop Reid Brignac who threw out the runner trying to go from second to third on a hard ground ball. A double play finished the inning on those above-mentioned seven pitches. In came the closer with a 1-run lead. Dane De La Rosa couldn’t find the plate until after enough runs had been scored to win the game.

Post game interviews of rehabbing Evan Longoria mention his slide into second base. They make no mention of what a bad piece of base running it was for him to even try to get to second base, much less that the ball got there long before he did. Longoria’s single dropped off the netting that covers the video board in left and it was an easy toss to second base.

Every game Wool E. Bull has a “race” around the bases pitted against a very young child. Wool E. always loses (except once a year on his birthday). Trust me. Wool E. Bull could beat the Evan Longoria in his current condition. Yes, Longoria got two singles (including the one he wasted trying for a double), one for a RBI. No, he did not come to plate in the bottom of the 9th with runners on second and third. He’d had his four plate appearances for the day.

The Braves starter Sean Gilmartin is recently up from Atlanta’s AA club. He is really good and that does not bode well for the 2013 Bulls. Assuming he follows the traditional path of young Braves pitchers, he could be with the Braves all next year. Yes, the Bulls got three runs off of him, but he looked very sharp and will be a formidable opponent. Maybe Atlanta will trade him away. The Bulls can hope.

Outside the game —

Up in the broadcast booth writer John Feinstein (Living on the Black, Tales from the Q School) was interviewed by Patrick Kinas and Scott Pose. Feinstein is writing a book about AAA baseball. Feinstein has a very good eye and ear for an interesting story, and told some of them last night. I'd expect his book to be worth reading. No word on when it will be coming out.

One of our favorite players from 2011 should be here tonight with the Columbus Clippers, Russ Canzler. I don’t quite understand why he isn’t playing in Cleveland yet.

One more time, let me make the plea that Kinas’ interviews be made available as podcasts. Sometimes we just can’t tune in before the game. He’s chatted with some interesting guys. Mystery to me why they can’t be put up on the website. For that matter, how come the video isn’t available on the website?

The Bull has been very quiet this home stand. In fact, the last time a Durham Bull hit a home run was July 26th, down in Gwinnett.

2 comments:

An audio archive or podcast of Patrick's interviews would be really nice.

I believe the video isn't available on the Bulls website since MiLB.com has the exclusive streaming rights. The annual MiLB.tv package is $39.95 though we got ours "bundled" with MLB.tv and saved $20, if you ignore the the implied cost of three weeks of emails and phone calls trying to get the MiLB part to work, we missed the whole April road trip. Since then we've used it to watch some Bulls road games and the home games when we were traveling, and it's OK. It has all of the AAA games plus assorted other levels. However it doesn't work on mobile devices (flash, not integrated with the costly MiLB Triple-A app) and it's only video not streaming audio.

There is an archive of past MiLB video, for home games it's just like the Bulls telecast starting exactly at the first pitch - so no pregame stuff is included there. I'm going to use that to listen to Feinstein assuming that he was on in the early innings and not pregame. I'll also look forward to his book.